If the US is on one side the Pope likely will find some way to be on the other side.
PopeWatch: Barking NATO
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
It has been said over and over that NATO being there will cause a conflict.
🤷🏻♀️
I mean, we did have labs there. We partially funded labs in China where Covid came from (gain of function against our laws).
The labs, to me, were enough to cause an invasion.
But, then you mix in the NGOs George Soros “democracy “ groups in Ukraine that show up in other countries when they have color revolutions.
I wonder if the Pope will change his mind about backing Soros now?
But, yeah. Some did see it coming.
It has been said over and over that NATO being there will cause a conflict.
Putin’s mendacious excuse. Ironically his war ensured that Nato and Ukraine are joined at the hip and that Ukraine will for the foreseeable future be a hostile neighbor to the Russians.
Actually, it was Biden, as leader of the leading power in the West, turning into a little more secular version of Francis himself that lead to the invasion. Didn’t happen on Trump’s watch.
When it comes to the Pope’s political judgements there’s much to disagree with, but he’s right to raise questions. Don, if we’re concerned about hostility between Ukraine and Russia, shouldn’t we have left the duly elected government alone rather than supporting the coup of 2014?
but he’s right to raise questions
I disagree. Geopolitical machinations aren’t in his wheelhouse.
shouldn’t we have left the duly elected government alone
You place a lot of faith in the fairness of elections under Russian puppet governments.
But, then you mix in the NGOs George Soros “democracy “ groups in Ukraine that show up in other countries when they have color revolutions.
The Ukraine has had an elected government for 30 years. The only elected official who disappeared in 2014 was Victor Yanukovich, who skedaddled over the border when he discovered the military and security services were not going to shed blood to protect him from an irate public. He was promptly replaced with an elected successor. Mr. Zelinskyy is the elected successor to the successor. Russophile parties have had ample space to contest elections in the Ukraine for 30 years and used to command 40% of the electorate. It’s just that Russia’s bullying in 2014 cost them 60% of their base of support. (And, no they did not advocate merging the Ukraine and Russia, a notion which has hardly any support in the Ukraine).
Don, if we’re concerned about hostility between Ukraine and Russia, shouldn’t we have left the duly elected government alone rather than supporting the coup of 2014?
There was no coup in 2014. There were massive protests which the pro-Russian president attempted to put down by force, sparking a revolution which toppled him.
CAG, the election of 2010 was by all accounts an honest election. Unlike some of our own of recent memory.
@”There was no coup in 2014″
“Revolutions” usually don’t just spontaneously happen. In 2014 an elected government was deposed with outside help which included, per multiple reports, the Obama administration. You have reason to doubt them?
The pro-Russian President fled after 138 protestors had been murdered and the police and the military made clear that was the last Ukrainian blood they were going to shed to keep him in power. Putin then promptly invaded seizing Crimea and the far eastern portion of Ukraine.
I guess this is fundamentally where we disagree. There are some really bad actors from the US causing most of this stuff. Soros has his fingerprints on most.
If we continue our presence in Ukraine it is forever war w Russia. Is that worth it? Do the Ukrainians who fled want us there that badly? It would take one phone call to tell Z, no money start negotiating, to end it for now.
And Nuland is has already been exposed, vis her phone call, as being involved in the coup.
There is no way I could ever be behind that. And the Ukrainian people suffer.
If we continue our presence in Ukraine it is forever war w Russia.
Not if Russia loses. If they prevail they will likely attack a Nato member like the Baltic States and then the US and Russia will be at war. Better to beat them now when we can do so, please God, without the shedding of US blood.
And Nuland is has already been exposed, vis her phone call, as being involved in the coup.
You haven’t actually read the transcript of the call, have you?
It’s pretty obviously diplomats scrambling like mad when a business-as-usual Eastern European political head has been SNIPING PROTESTERS.
You could place some American blame for a political situation… the guy who massacred those protesters used a paper from a New York lawfirm to frame his opposition. (They settled out of court.)
In 2014 an elected government was deposed with outside help which included, per multiple reports, the Obama administration. You have reason to doubt them?
Again, the only official departing was the President, who was replaced in a special election held months later. I should note that something like this has over the last generation happened about once every three years or so in Latin America. The only time it attracted any attention above and beyond a single news article was in 2009, when a Chavez-imitator was bounced out of office in Honduras; red-haze outfits like the Washington Office on Latin America (and their allies in the State Department) were incensed because the left’s not supposed to lose, ever. Palaeoconservatives are seldom impressive on any subject, but they’re at their most comical whimpering over the comeuppance given sketchy if not nefarious characters abroad (while at the same time telling us all that politics if foreign countries should not interest us in the least). Thomas Fleming is still steamed that Slobodan Milosevic wasn’t permitted to kick the Albanians out of Kosovo.
There are some really bad actors from the US causing most of this stuff. Soros has his fingerprints on most.
In your imagination only.
There is no way I could ever be behind that. And the Ukrainian people suffer.
They’re suffering because they’ve been invaded by a neighboring country.
“Barking”, is it? Barking v the leveling of Mariupol? Please, Francis, there is no comparison. Are the Russians/Putin so afraid of barking that they commit these war crimes? What a joke this Vatican is.
It is complicated.
And we struggle to discern what info to accept.
I don’t like or trust Zelensky, Putin or Biden/obama. Or Xi. Or merkel. I think Pope Francis accepts the input of WHO and Schwab.
🙏
I do like to hear what Ric Grennel has to say
Pope Francis will blame everyone except Putin. Everyone.
“Pope Francis will blame everyone except Putin. Everyone.”
Nope, he won’t blame Katholyck President Biden – ever.
He also griped about the flow of weapons to Ukraine as she fights for her life.
Neither sentiment is going over well in Ukraine, nor should it. But I appreciate his blinkered candor.
The people who bellow “CIA coup!” never fail to not mention Yanukovych’s massacre of protesters.
Odd, that.
The weird thing is, I’m somewhat sympathetic to the NATO over-expansion argument, and think diplomatic missteps by the US in the 1990s vis-a-vis Russia were unnecessary.
And yet, I fully understand why nations who have vivid memories of Russian tyranny would leap to join NATO, too. And none of that justifies Putin’s invasion and subsequent atrocities.
and think diplomatic missteps by the US in the 1990s vis-a-vis Russia were unnecessary.
I doubt they mattered. I think what mattered is that it took the median post-communist country 16 years to break even in regard to measures of their standard of living. It’s a wonder that renascent parliamentary systems survived anywhere in those circumstances.